


Recruitment

by Zoi no miko (zoi_no_miko)



Category: Elsewhere University (Webcomic)
Genre: F/F, Fae & Fairies, Psychotropic Drugs, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 02:23:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9945983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoi_no_miko/pseuds/Zoi%20no%20miko
Summary: You don't consider Elsewhere University until you go to Burning Man, when you drink mushroom tea on ecstasy in somebody's tipi.





	

**Author's Note:**

> In which psychotropic drugs give you the sight, but unreliably, and you're never sure if what you're looking at is the drugs or the fae....

You don't consider Elsewhere University until you go to Burning Man, when you drink mushroom tea on ecstasy in somebody's tipi. You spend what feels like hours with your head in the lap of a dark-haired girl in a feathered headdress, your conversation wandering out amongst the stars. Sometimes the shrooms make it look like her feathers are horns, like the crystal jewelery in her hair is living fireflies. Sometimes her eyes become portals to the universe. Sometimes her fingers grow long and spindly as she strokes your hair.

You've already given away all the bracelets you made for gifting, but you're wearing a necklace with a blue glass feather on it that you'd made yourself. You give it to her, and it shines against her pale skin. "Thank you," she whispers, and kisses your forehead.

You wake up alone in the tipi in the heat of the day with a new sense of self. The secrets of the universe have been whispered in your ear, but the only thing you remember is the University. Great scholarships, she'd said. Amazing glass-blowing studio.

She'd left behind a beautiful feather hair clip for you, too. You add a few strings of your handmade glass beads to it. You wear it to orientation, and feel pleased when your RA stares at it. Envious, no doubt.

"There is a zero tolerance policy to drugs here," says your RA, like she knows. "It's for your own safety." You don't mind. You've always been very careful to set boundaries between the parties and real life. You're in University now. You're here to work.

The orientation pamphlet was very clear about the University tradition of nicknames, so you give people your festival name, Carmine Crystal. It's always felt more real to you than your birth name anyway. There's other traditions, too, that sometimes seem strange and nonsensical, but you find it encouraging that University isn't as rigid and stuffy as you'd always believed, that there's room here for a free spirit like you. You hear people whisper of paths that shouldn't be taken, of corners to avoid, but it all seems like too much to remember. In any case, you feel safe here, like the Universe has meant for you to be here.

"That's a beautiful hair clip," says a boy that you pass on the quad late at night. Something about his eyes glitters in the darkness.

"It was a gift from a friend," You reply. You make a delicate red glass feather on your first day in the studio and add it to the clip. You make a small glass dove, and hang it from a cord in your dorm window where it catches the light. The next morning there's a silky white feather on your window sill. It fits into your clip perfectly.

You're in University now, except on Friday evening when the shadows grow long you start to think of dancing. The face of the girl you met at Burning Man appears in your dorm window - of course she's a student here - with a small container of gummy strawberries. "Liquid Acid. You want some? There's a great campfire in the woods we can go to. You should come out with me, _Carmine_."

You're already digging your moccasins out of the bottom of your suitcase. "How much?"

"Just come out with me. You can pay me back later." She presses a sugared candy between your lips before you climb out the window, and by the time you get to the campfire you're tripping so hard that you can't remember how you got there. But there's music pumping with a great bassline that calls to the need to dance in your blood. It's perfect.

What amazes you most is that your fellow students have gone all out just for a campfire. Oh, there's a few who must be newbies, like you, in jeans and sweaters or leggings and dresses. But the rest are fantastical enough to rival any rave you've gone to, dressed in scarves and feathers and crystals and bones, or nearly no clothes at all. The acid makes the world twist, makes their costumes even more fanciful, their bodies more beautiful. Limbs grow long, skin shifts between colours of pink and indigo and gold and more colours that you can't seem to name. You love every minute of it. "I didn't know so many Burners went to college here!" you say to the girl with the feather headdress, and she laughs.

"We like finding places where we can be ourselves."

The boy with the glittering eyes is there, his face painted with fantastical designs. The acid makes it look like he has a row of eyes across his forehead. You stare at them, entranced when one winks at you. He smiles with teeth like diamonds, catching your hand. "That's a beautiful hair clip. Come dance with me."

"But I'm with..." for a moment your mind falters. What is her name? When you turn to your friend her face stretches in a grotesque exaggeration of anger, and for a moment you think her teeth are a thousand sharpened needles.

"She's with me," she hisses, fingers like spindles when they grip your arms and pull you away. Then the hallucination shifts, and she's normal again, eyes like midnight and lips like rosebuds.

"I'm sorry, I forgot your nickname," you say as she rearranges one of the strings of beads that hang from your feather clip.

"You can call me Anna-Bella," she says, lips curving, and when you lean into kiss her she tastes like rosewater.

Anna-Bella presses another sugared candy between your lips when you start coming down, and you kiss her fingers. Time warps and shifts until you've been at the campfire with her all weekend, but it's the best weekend of your life. 

You wake up in your dorm room mid-day monday with a new sense of self. The secrets of the universe have passed in front of your eyes, but all you can remember are her kisses. The tiny glass dove you'd hung in your window is gone. Of course.... you gave it to her. Of _course_ you gave it to her. You've slept through your monday morning studio time. It doesn't matter. You can work in the evening, after art history classes. You start making a tiny glass parakeet, and find a shining green feather on your windowsill that fits perfectly into your hair clip.

You email your brother and ask him to send you your festival gear.

Your RA's lips pinch with worry when you see her. "You really shouldn't do things like that without a trip sitter," she tells you in a low voice, and you smile.

"Don't worry. I have one."

~~~


End file.
